RE LODGE - Citizens are coming together in Carbon County and Red Lodge to make preparations for the spring runoff.
They want to be ready just in case something happens like the flooding in the Spring of 2022.
Many had flooding in the basements and part of the meeting involved engineers talking about how to properly fill in place sandbags.
About 170 attended the meeting.
"Knowing we couldn't handle a regular spring runoff, so the best thing as homeowners we can do is be prepared," said Sandy Conlee, part of a group called Grass Roots Citizens For Flood Preparedness.
Three Red Lodge city council members, Terri Durbin, Jody Ronning, and Shinta Daniels, organized the meeting.
Durbin said at the beginning of the meeting that they were there as private citizens and not talking on behalf of the city.
"We're sort of on our own for preventative measures," Durbin said. "The city's going to step in if there's an emergency."
Experts spoke with the group and the plan was to have them available for smaller discussions.
"We have structural engineers, floodplain management people and insurance representatives here to talk about what people can do in preparation in the event that we do have something occur after spring runoff," Durbin sad.
Another part of the preparation is having block coordinators to call everyone in the event of a flood
"Has all their phone numbers, has all their email addresses," Conlee said. "As information starts trickling down. We can go to the block coordinator, he can send out mass emails and everybody will know I mean the whole idea here is communication."
While the meeting was about preparation, some asked about progress on some of the work in and around Rock Creek
Carbon County Commissioner Bill Bullock talked about the challenges of the different agencies working on the cleanup and repairs.
"We're trying to get some headway," Bullock said. "We've been relentless on this and making a little bit of headway but can't be the deadline. I can't get the date."
"It's important for people to think ahead now and start thinking about buying sandbags," Durbin said. "Getting those things prepared, knowing what they need to do to protect their doors and windows so that we can be a little bit more prepared than we were last year."
"If nothing happens, oh yay," Conlee said. "If something does and we're prepared and we can help somebody not go through what we did last year would be wonderful."
